Geralt of Rivia
The World does not need a hero. It needs a professional. --'' ''-Geralt's Motto 'Geralt Targaryen-Stark (Snow) '''is the half uncle of Eddard Stark, bastard son of Edwyle Stark and Vaermina Targaryen, and an elder and ancient Witcher lord. He is one of the most skilled warriors in all of the Northern Realms. Due to his mutations, Geralt has been able to live up to seventy six years, which is not even half of the age of his adopted uncle and close friend Vesemir. Biography Background Geralt was born near Winterfell as his mother was having an intimate and unconsummated affair with his father, Edwyle Stark. Vaermina Targaryen, his mother, gave birth to young Geralt in a castle tower near Winterfell, and wanted to raise the child as her own, with Edwyle's fatherly support. Unfortunately, during Geralt's late teen years, Vaermina was caught with her lie, and, due to breaking her marriage with Lord Hycils Lannister, was subsequently sentenced to death. She was hanged, and her a hefty bounty was placed upon her newborn son's head - death. Lord Edwyle died shortly after of illness. Before his death, he had sent word to his friend Vesemir, who was a master Witcher. Vesemir, a very young and honorable man, found Geralt, a recent runaway, mauled by wolves. He took Geralt across the sea to the Northern Realms: to Kaer Morhen, to patch him up, and after he had healed, to train and become a master Witcher himself. There, Geralt was trained and made to be a witcher. He survived the many blistering mutations required to grant witchers their abilities and passed the Trial of the Grasses. Geralt's intensive training, and the mutagenic experimentation carried out upon him, have granted him considerably greater strength, speed, endurance, resilience, healing, senses, complete immunity to diseases and conventional poisons, and an extreme resistance to pain. Due to his brilliant success in training, Geralt was selected for additional mutation experiments. He is the only witcher to have survived these experiments, his stark white hair being a side effect of these additional mutations. After finishing his witcher training, Geralt embarked into the world on a horse named Roach, a name he would bestow upon every one of his later horses. Thus, he became a monster slayer for hire. At one point, Geralt demanded the unborn child of Princess Pavetta and her husband Duny as a reward for his services. The child was born a girl, and Geralt refused her. However, fate caused Geralt and the girl, Cirilla, to cross paths three times. Eventually, Geralt took the girl as his protégé, following the death of her grandmother, Queen Calanthe. Now, he loves her as his own daughter. Personality Most of the time, he can be apathetic, cynical, and threatening. Despite his outwardly cold nature, Dandelion notes that behind his exterior hides a fiercely loyal friend, and a man of good humour and as someone not indifferent to suffering. Geralt is shown in the books and games to have many good friends all over the Northern Realms, such as Caldemeyn of Blaviken, Zoltan Chivay, and of course Dandelion. He is also very protective of and loyal to his friends and companions, and is willing to go to great lengths for those who matter to him. He can be kind-hearted and caring to the people he loves. Geralt is also shown to be extremely adept at allaying intense, and at times bleak, situations and as a man who would much sooner have everyone return home than draw their swords. His experience of at least ninety-seven years in the world makes him a world-weary man, often expressing disdain and circuitous insults to those he considers cruel, foolish, etc. Geralt is consistently shown as fiercely loyal to his friends. Depending on the player's choice in ''The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, he may risk Temeria's future to save Triss Merigold from the Nilfgaardians. In the short story "The Edge of the World", he is shown requesting Scoia'tael to spare Dandelion and kill only him. Geralt frequently shows remorse and has revelations in his life throughout the books. Other times he has complete emotional breakdowns, even giving up being a witcher in general and dropping his morals at one point in The Lady of the Lake. Earliest Appearances The youngest Geralt has appeared is in the flashbacks to Edwyle Stark's marriage to Marna Locke. The bastard son, sporting the signature Targaryen platinum hair, was teased and rendered an outcast by the his fellow Northerners, never truly feeling quite at home in Winterfell. When a new baby was born and brought up in Winterfell, Geralt opted to care for him while the child's mother was away. Geralt learned to care for the infant on an emotional level, forming his first bond since his father. Unfortunately, during a particularly cold and dreary night, the baby was stricken with a vicious fever, and died mere days later. Geralt was torn by this, and never quite recovered. As Geralt grew up, he experienced greater losses. When he was nineteen, his father was killed in battle by enemy forces one day, and his step mother died shortly after. His half brother, Rickard, was still a young boy, and Geralt decided to leave Winterfell, since the others did not take a liking to him whatsoever. On the run, he encountered a pack of starving wild direwolves, who savaged and mauled him. An unexpected rescue Hours after the attack, Geralt lay unconscious on the main road, skin torn off and bone exposed. The wolves, feasting upon another, and fatter, unfortunate traveler, and were almost done with his once lively corpse. As the wolves finished their meal, the clopping of horse hooves startled them. A lone arrow went directly into one of the wolves' necks, sending it into a daze. The man, appearing as a merchant, drew his sword and drove off the wolves, slaying the wounded one. The man picked up Geralt's bloodied wounded body and placed it upon his horse, riding off into the distance. Geralt awoke in a large castle like building. Kaer Morhen. The pain was excruciating. The man who rescued him presented himself, not as a merchant, but as a master witcher named Vesemir. He opted to take Geralt under his wing as his personal protege, and mentor him to become a master witcher himself. Vesemir, a master swordsman, taught Geralt some of the best he knew. Becoming a Witcher Geralt's training proved successful, and by age 25, he was ready to be subjected to the witcher mutations. His innocence faded, and he became a true master witcher. He was sent on his first task. Unfortunately, he was shot in the head with a crossbow during his scouting mission and rendered severely wounded. Geralt awakens with no recollection of the details of his sudden reappearance or of the five intervening years. He is rescued by the last remaining witchers in the world and is taken back to Kaer Morhen. There, he is drawn into a complicated conspiracy concerning the witchers, their secrets, and the nefarious forces that are after that knowledge. Shortly after Geralt's return to Kaer Morhen, an attack is launched on the fortress by an unknown organization, spearheaded by two mages. Though one mage is unknown to her, Triss recognizes the other as Savolla. Geralt provides assistance to his friends in repelling the attack, before Vesemir proclaims that the party must split up as the two mages, having unleashed a frightener in the main courtyard, have descended into the witchers' laboratory to procure the secrets they are in pursuit of. Vesemir offers Geralt the choice of either going after the mages with Triss, or staying to assist the other witchers in defeating the frightener. Later, Leo and Geralt find Triss in an injured state, and descend to the laboratory in order to stop the mages from absconding with the secret formulae. When confronted with the witchers, one of the attackers, namely, The Professor, kills Leo with a crossbow bolt before teleporting away, along with the mages and a sizeable portion of the witchers' writings. During Leo's funeral, Vesemir decides that the attackers, known as Salamandra, must be tracked down and forced to pay for their transgressions. He tells Geralt to use Temeria as a starting point in his search, as he once lifted a curse there from Foltest's daughter. Geralt pursues the mysterious Salamandra, and in the process meets many people from his past, as well as new acquaintances who either require the witcher's help or offer their own in his quest to regain his identity. Chapter I Vizima is under quarantine due to the Catriona plague, and Geralt cannot enter it as he lacks the necessary letter of safe conduct. Thus, he settles in Vizima's outskirts. During the night, Geralt is attacked by spectral hounds, known as barghests, which were in pursuit of a woman and child. The witcher manages to rescue a boy named Alvin, who levitates and recites Ithlinne's Prophecy in a disturbing voice after the attack, revealing himself to be a Source. Shortly thereafter, Geralt meets Shani, a red-haired medic hailing from Oxenfurt who arrived here to help quell the Catriona epidemic. She decides to place the now-orphaned Alvin under her care. Geralt also meets the alchemist Kalkstein, a trader named Declan Leuvaarden, and Zoltan Chivay, an old friend from Geralt's past life. Geralt seeks out the Reverend, who agrees to assist him in obtaining passage to the city if he fulfils the contract on The Beast, a certain entity which is thought to be responsible for the barghests. The Reverend sends Geralt to assist three pillars of the community: Odo, Mikul, and Haren Brogg. The trader Odo tasks Geralt with weeding out the echinops in his garden after a session of heavy drinking. Mikul sends the witcher to clear the local crypt of ghouls, wherein Geralt discovers the corpse of a poisoned woman. Haren Brogg tasks Geralt with driving away the drowners from his goods by the riverbank. It becomes apparent, however, that Haren is actually a hawker, after a regiment of Scoia'tael attempts to take away the goods Geralt was tasked to protect. The Reverend then offers Geralt to deal with Abigail, a local witch, to whom Shani has now transferred her responsibility over Alvin. The witch carries out a magical procedure in which she attempts to communicate with the spirit of the White Frost in Alvin awakened by the Beast. It confers that the Beast's appearance was caused by the sins of the local residents. Geralt returns to the Inn, wherein he discovers a group of Salamandra fighters assaulting Shani. After dealing with them, the witcher pursues the other members of the Salamandra. Upon reaching their cavernous lair, Geralt discovers Alvin inside who was taken from Abigail's home and turned over to the group by the Reverend and his followers. Further along the cave system, Geralt and Alvin meet Abigail, who asks for the witcher's help in fleeing the enraged crowd that has amassed outside. Geralt makes a choice, either to save Abigail from being lynched, or to leave her to the judgment of the Outskirts' residents. After deciding, he defeats the Beast and the barghests. Later, after receiving a pass into Vizima from the Reverend, or taking it from his corpse, Geralt returns to the Inn, and travels to the city with Shani. However, he is stopped by Mikul at the gates and is turned over to the city guard. The Witcher III: Wild Hunt The third installment of the trilogy follows Geralt through his final adventures. Following the events of Witcher 2, Geralt has regained his memory of the past and prepares to embark on a new journey. In the Witcher 3, Geralt is on the hunt for the only person he considers kin, Ciri. Along his journey, Geralt must face the Wild Hunt in order to protect the people he cares about. In the new open world, Geralt has the opportunity to complete quests that are both part of the main story and side quests. He will also interact with old friends Dandelion and Vesemir along with potential lovers Triss Merigold and Yennefer. Trivia * Geralt is the oldest living main character in the entire saga. * Geralt, although being half Stark, takes after his mother's hair color of Targaryen platinum. * Geralt is the oldest living Stark. * Geralt is regarded as one of the greatest swordsmen alive. Category:Hero Category:Legendary Heroes Category:Witchers Category:Protagonist Category:House Stark Category:Bastards Category:Swordsman Category:Wizard Category:Alive